Europe

The Chool Bus (ch30)

CHAPTER 30: Professor T wastes no time taking another stab at acquiring comfortable hiking boots. Next stop, Albuquerque. Focus group interviews at Central New Mexico Community College (CNM), after which the gang takes another swing at nature trekking on the Embudito Trail.

The gang was running ahead of schedule so Professor T was anxious to consult a real outdoor footwear specialist once the bus rolled into Albuquerque. But it was a nearly six hour journey from Williams on Interstate 40/Historic Route 66. And since they weren’t pressed for time, the gang wanted to do some touristy stuff en route. Of course, Billie wanted to see if anyone was driving a flat-bed Ford slowin’ down to take a look at someone standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona. But like the Dude in The Big Lebowski, if she had to pick something from the Classic Rock canon, it would be Creedence. 

Truth told, she doesn’t really hate the Eagles like “The Dude,” she considered all that noise so much fake controversy, anyway…just marketing noise. Grunge-Metal is her grindstone, and hard-core Grunge started as a rejection of the pabulum corporate A&R people were pushing on radio and MTV’s “heavy rotation”…mostly vapid, soulless “Hair Metal.”

“Besides,” said Billie. “When you get down to brass tacks, ‘Take it Easy’ is Jackson Browne’s song.” Billie plays the tough-as-nails Grunge Queen to a tee, but among friends she’ll confess to having loved Jackson’s early work, as well as the social commentary that came later…Lawyers in Love, Information War, Barricades of Heaven. “Good stuff,” said Billie. “Not entirely unlike the social commentary of punk bands like Green day and The Clash.”

***

Jack was more interested in seeing some retro sights, so the gang decided to stop at an Indian Market on the Continental Divide for some photos and trinkets. Once back on the road, Billie dialed her music playlist to those early country-rock, classic Americana tunes. Starting with those gorgeous duets by Graham Parsons and Emmylou Harris. Buck was aware of Parsons’ early influence on the Americana genre, but had never really listened to those deep cuts. So, Billie and Buck settled into a quiet reverie in the pilot and co-pilot seats of the Chool Bus.

Back in the galley area, Professor T and Jack were at it again. This time, inspired by their interaction with the local natives…the topic was Immigration. 

“How can we justify considering ANYONE illegal on land taken away from their ancestors by force?” Jack was taking Professor T to the task of defending the trail of tears leading to euro-honkey hegemony in the USA.

“Well,” Professor T assumed a somber countenance formulating his response. See, Mork and Jack were constantly flexing their rhetorical muscles, each using the other as a sounding board…a form of mental practice. Sort of like chess, but with ideas and words. “Europe was getting crowded and opportunities for building wealth was growing scarce. The news of boundless land and natural resources coming from North America was presenting a tempting brass ring to grab. Very sexy,” said Professor T. “And since Europeans were in possession of better technology for prevailing in armed conflict, i guess their dominance could have been considered inevitable.”

“But, the indigenous people were handicapped by a different relationship with the land,” said Jack. “More like co-existence, with the concept of ‘ownership’ being an unthinkable proposition.” 

“Yes but, over the centuries, euro-honkeys had developed a conquer and rule modus operendi. And once it became apparent who had the sharpest knives, the most soldiers, and an iron-will to commit outrage against those daring to challenge, they became dominant. They made the rules, and they enforced those rules with the promise of ruthless violence.” Professor T felt he was on the losing end of this discussion. He considered the current movement toward branding indigenous and Latino people “illegal” patently absurd.

“I guess it comes down to which philosophy is better suited for dominance, and the euro-honkeys had it,” said Professor T. You may not like the result, but it’s important to recognize the fundamental mistake made by indigenous tribes.” He shrugged, and continued. “Had they understood the inevitable dominance of the euro way of social organization, they could have learned to play that game while preserving religious and cultural traditions within a ‘fenced-in honkey world.’” None of it was ‘inevitable’ at the time. Remember, the Whites had to negotiate with each other over how to grow crops, manage livestock, and co-exist near population centers. Many of those negotiations done at the barrel of guns.”

Jack was appalled at a sense of entitlement the recent Christian Nationalist/White Supremacist movement was conducting themselves. “I just don’t think it’s sustainable,” said Jack. They can’t justify ruling such a diverse nation from a theocratic platform. Isn’t this what they are fighting with the Muslims about? And the idea of building a wall to keep out people originally displaced by White Supremacist ancestors is laughably absurd. We have to get back to honoring diversity. We can never accomplish a pure white ethno-state…not here.” 

 “Well, they’re gonna give it the ol’ college try, it seems,” said Professor T. And that conflict is ramping up to fever-pitch as we speak. The folks favoring good ol’ euro-honkey hegemony have recognized demographic vicissitudes were heading toward something they call, ‘The Great Replacement.’ Where a nation dominated by whites for two-hundred-ish years was heading toward an organic inversion. White couples having fewer if any children; brown Christians and Muslims being ‘fruitful’ like gang-busters; and the folks down south, the ones displaced by land wars, have been returning like homing pigeons. And unlike the proud North American Warrior-Tribes of the 19th Century,’ these folks learned to coexist alongside the whites, signing up for jobs the entitled honkeys didn’t want to do. Not to mention the rainbow wave of others from around the world applying for citizenship to this teeming ‘land of boot-strap opportunity’ with their relentless work-ethic and professional credentials.”

Jack shook his head, sadly. “We could choose to welcome and assimilate them in our uniquely diverse stew,” said Jack. “Instead, we’re trying to deport ALL of them, then keep them out with legal and literal freaking walls? This is crazy, and not sustainable!”

Professor T pondered Jack’s “unsustainable” argument, then put on his “devil’s advocate” hat and plowed right in. “You know, multiculturalism was never going to work. It’s an inherent vulnerability as other multi-ethnic states have faced social fragmentation, lower civic trust, and heightened tribal conflict.”

“As we are seeing now,” said Jack. “But it seems the only tribe at war is the white ethno-nationalist euro-honkey tribe. I’m not sure we can count their declared self-fulfilling prophecy as a worthy one.” 

Professor T was testing the tensile strength of his debater’s resolution skills. “But there are social thought leaders with direct access to the White House asserting non-Western immigrants can’t assimilate into American civic life. They conclude physical removal is the only tenable solution to preserve cultural norms. ‘Look at all the innocent victims of crime perpetrated by illegals,’ they say. ‘It’s an invasion, and we have to remove them in order to preserve fundamental national sovereignty.’ ‘Besides,’ they declare, ‘we’re merely enforcing laws previous administrations were too cowardly to do themselves. Total deportation is simply the literal enforcement of existing immigration law.’” 

Jack was starting to feel like he needed a shower. “Well, that kind of thinking may have friends in the White House, but i suspect there’ll be a total dismantling of these draconian measures once current occupants are replaced by the democratic will of our nation’s formerly sleepy majority.”

“We’ll have to pick this up later,” said Professor T. There’s the gettin’ place!” Billie was steering the Bus into the parking lot. “I’m going to retire my cruel shoes for a less agonizing experience on the Embudito Trail.”  

NEXT WEEK:
Focus group interviews completed at Central New Mexico Community College and the gang gears up for a full day on the Embudito Trail. This time Buck won’t have to carry Professor T on his back…hopefully.

GO BACK => Preface and Chapter Links

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter IV (arc of the spiral)

In an attempt to illuminate where Loopcircus is coming from, metaphysically speaking, we’ll draw a brief allegory of humankind’s struggle to understand its place in the universe as an ever oscillating battle between those who insist there is a particular source from which all creation springs and those who insist we can observe the universe as the result of billions of years of adaptive (and otherwise) incremental changes. Loopcircus may be tempted to side with one or the other of these conflicting views, but the bare-metal truth is we don’t know… nor do we believe ANYONE truly knows. So… without further adieu, the spiral of puny human metaphysical understanding from Gilgamesh to Sagan.

In the beginning, there was dust, then clay, then Gilgamesh, a king who wrestled gods, chased immortality, and discovered, like a Vegas lounge lizard hungover in a bathtub full of pennies, that life’s a fleeting joke. Fast forward a few millennia, and the frame focuses on the desert of Palestine, where a carpenter’s son strolls in, flips the metaphysical tables, and promises an afterlife juicier than a Lebanese fig. This, my friends, is the Big Bang of Western metaphysics.

Centuries later, Europe enters its Renaissance, a period where deities dance the can-can with da Vinci’s anatomy sketches and Galileo gets poked in the eye by the Vatican for suggesting Earth isn’t the cosmic navel. Science, now a pimply teenager with a telescope, starts flexing its muscles, whispering sweet nothings of reason and logic to the masses. And religion, the aging aristocrat clutching its pearls, declares war.

Enter Darwin, a fellow with a penchant for Galapagos finches, drops an apparent truth bomb making the Colosseum look like a petting zoo. Suddenly, humanity isn’t God’s special snowflake, but a hairy cousin to the orangutan, scrambling up the evolutionary ladder in a desperate bid to avoid becoming monkey chow. Cue the Wagnerian strains of existential angst, thicker than London fog, and the rise of Nietzsche, and his magnificent mustache.

Across the pond, the soon to be USA, a rambunctious toddler all hopped up on Manifest Destiny, is busy carving its own metaphysical niche. The Wild West, a whiskey-soaked fever dream, birthed bootstraps pragmatism, a philosophy as rugged as a cowboy’s chaps, where truth is measured by bullets, dollars, and cents, not divine pronouncements. Meanwhile, in the East Coast salons, Emerson and Thoreau, Transcendentalist proto-hippies on a nature binge, preach a gospel of self-reliance and communion with the cosmos, a far cry from the fire-and-brimstone sermons echoing from the puritan pulpits.

The 20th century, a rollercoaster ride through world wars and atomic bombs, left humanity bruised and questioning. Freud, a psychoanalyst with a penchant for cigars and Electra complexes, peered into the murky depths of the human psyche, revealing a primal soup of desires and neuroses far removed from the squeaky-clean narratives of organized religion. Existentialism, a philosophy as bleak as a Greek Tragedy, became the soundtrack of the disillusioned, while pop culture, a neon-lit funhouse, offered fleeting solace in the form of Elvis’ hips and Marilyn’s pout.

And now, in the 21st century, the stage is split. On one side, the Intelligent Design revival, a troupe of fire-and-brimstone preachers, resurrects the old gods, their voices booming with the righteous fury of a televangelist hawking snake oil. On the other, Carl Sagan’s disciples, hold aloft the flickering torch of reason, their voices laced with the wry humor of a scientist explaining the Big Bang to a five-year-old.

Then there’s we, the ever-curious, popcorn in hand, watching this embarrassing spectacle unfold. Will we turn into pillars of salt? Will fire and brimstone engulf the stage, will the Saganite laughter pierce the darkness? Or will Camus, WB Yeats, and George Carlin’s detached amusement save us from the disease of “passionate intensity?” The curtain has yet to fall, and the play, as always, goes on. One thing seems destined to persist: The spiral…ever oscillating between extreme attractions and aversions follows a seemingly eternal arc…each epoch like Groundhog Day…round and round the galaxy we spin…forever…and ever…and ever.